"It does—mostly," affirmed Fred. "They get settled down and prosy, or else—well, dissipated."
"Good gracious! Is that the effect we are supposed to have on the character of our lords and masters?" asked Mrs. Hardy unbelievingly.
"Fred's experience is confined to barrack life and its attendant evils. I don't think she makes allowance for the semi-artistic temper of the Stuart. He strikes me as having just enough of it to keep his heart always young, and his affections too—on tap, as it were."
"What queer ideas you have about that man!" said Fred suddenly. "Don't you like him?"
"I would not dare say no with so many opposing me."
"Oh, you don't know Rachel. She is always attributing the highest of virtues or the worst of vices to the most unexpected people," said Tillie. "I don't believe she has any feeling in the question at all, except to get on the opposite side of the question from everyone else. If she would own up, I'll wager she likes him as well as the rest of us."
"Do you, Rachel?" But her only answer was a laugh. "If you do, I can't see why you disparage him."
"I did not."
"Well, you said his affections were always on tap."
"That was because I envy him the exhaustless youth such a temperament gives one. Such people defy time and circumstances in a way we prosaic folks can never do. It is a gift imparted to an artist, to supply the lack of practical ingredients that are the prime ones to the rest of creation."